Frozen Memory Work Board Game!

    

     We are involved in a homeschooling group called Classical Conversations. We meet once a week and the parents tutor and lead the children in lots of learning and activities. We love it! I have been helping out with the review games this year. I started my hunt for a new game this week and came up with this one after gathering some inspiration from Pinterest. I saw where another mom had used paint swatches as game tiles and I absolutely loved the idea! How fun to have such a fantastic array of colors to make bright and beautiful games. I went to work immediately on creating something that I knew would be a hit, (at least in my home). A Frozen board game! 
     
     I decided to check online for some fun clip art that I could use. Of course there were TONS! I printed and laminated the pictures that I chose. I cut out the pictures and I also cut the paint swatches down to the size that I wanted for the board. I chose a black cardboard poster at the pharmacy that I felt would hold up well and went to work gluing down the pieces. After I had everything placed where I wanted it, I attached velcro pieces to each colored swatch and wrote down fun activities on each of them. VOILA! All done!! All that is left to do is roll the die, ask some memory work questions and let the kiddos learn while having fun! 

It was that easy! I hope you find this inspiring and let me know what you think!

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New Homeschool Space!

      It's been a crazy busy time in our life this year.  We started our first year of homeschooling which has been an amazingly rewarding, but challenging experience.  I am still working 24-36 hours per week at my job as a Registered Nurse at Urgent Care and now our latest venture, the start of our YouTube channel organizedMOM.  To say the least, there have been many times when I have felt "less than organized"! The perfectionist in me struggles to maintain the order that I crave in my household.  Each day has brought with it a mountain of emotions and obstacles that have to be overcome. I am slowly learning to juggle the demands of wearing so many hats; a task that you moms know all too well, I'm sure.

     At the beginning of our homeschool year I had our classroom upstairs in the bonus room. It's a very large space so I thought it would be the perfect place to put everything homeschool related. After several months, the clutter of posters, binders, desks, and more became overwhelming to me and I needed to simplify. FAST! So in true organizedMOM fashion, I set out to tackle the entire project in just one day. I cleared out a room downstairs near our kitchen that we had been using for a small office and storage. I persuaded my husband to paint the room with some leftover paint he had in the garage and I began the massive task of clearing out the upstairs and moving everything into this room that is significantly smaller in size.  About halfway through I reached the "why did I get myself into this" mark. The room was a mess and I couldn't figure out how to fit everything into this smaller space. Somehow, I gathered the strength and inspiration to continue and I pressed on. I had a vision. A vision of a room where we could come and get away from the chaos of the house and seclude ourselves into a world of learning bliss. An oasis of information would flow freely while my children all sat quietly following the meticulous schedule I had planned out for them......

HA! My fantasizing was about as far from the truth as it could be. With a demanding 21 month old little girl there is never any quiet or escape from chaos. EVER! Nonetheless, the room has been a great place for us to go to learn and spend some time together exploration God's world and the people who have lived in it. It's not always quiet, clean, orderly or exactly as I expected it to be, but the space is serving its purpose for our family and I can't wait to share it with you!

   
Here is a quick tour of the room. Yes, it's a bit cluttered but I have had to maximize the available wall and floor space. It is always a work in progress, but hey, that's the beauty of life. We are all really just one big work in progress. Each day we can learn from the mistakes made before and hopefully use those to grow into a better version of ourselves. The version the Lord has seen in us all along.

 Homeschool Room Tour 2015

First Week= Success!

     Our first week of homeschooling is OVER and we all survived!  I am pleasantly surprised at how it all went. There were certainly some rough spots along the way but overall I have to say that I feel a sense of relief that maybe, just maybe, I can actually do this and be somewhat successful at it! 

     I am homeschooling my eleven year old son, Jacob, and my four year old son, Mason. My nine year old is remaining in public school this year.  The baby bear, Maddie, who is fourteen months old will be doing her normal thing each day- (hanging on my leg begging to be held).  I found that teaching them both is a little challenging considering that they are so far apart in age.  I did notice that there was some time of waiting for the older one when he would finish his assignment and would have to wait on me to finish with the little guy.  I plan on putting a system in place to help with this in the coming weeks. 

     Today as we were riding in the car Jacob made the comment that he was disappointed that tomorrow was Saturday because he wanted to have to school.  WOW!!! My child who dreaded every day of public school last year is excited about learning??  That was all I needed to hear to know that we are doing the right thing. I am really looking forward to what this school year will bring and I am loving the opportunity to grow my relationships with my children while expanding their knowledge of the world around them.  

~Taking The Plunge~

Hi! My name is Christy and I am the Organized MOM (mom of many) homeschooler. This is my first year as a homeschooling mom and my very first blog post. I am a part-time Registered Nurse, I have four beautiful children and two step-children and a wonderful, loving husband. Come and take this journey with me as I navigate my way through this crazy, hectic life as a mom of many, nurse, and now homeschooler! 

Here we go. 

I must be crazy because I swore that I would never do this, but here I am. The homeschooling mama. I battled with God and myself for many weeks before I decided to listen to the pulling of the Lord and take my children's education and upbringing and place them in the palm of his hand. I told myself, "I can't do this" and "I am not smart enough." I even said things to myself like "I might not be nice enough and patient enough to them." God took all of those insecurities and fears and quite clearly spoke to me and said "Trust Me." OK God. I trust you. He placed me in contact with a friend who had just recently decided to home school her own children and she recommended the Classical Conversations program to me. After contacting the director for that community and some lengthy research on what the community and style of teaching were all about, I dove in. And when I say dove in I mean morning, noon and night thinking, reading, planning, buying, organizing, thinking some more, praying, praying and more praying. And then more organizing~~~ hahaha! (I am a self-diagnosed compulsive organizer. And here we are. One week from officially starting our very first homeschooling adventure. 

My anxiety is somewhat under control although I am feeling less than adequate and fearful that I haven't planned enough, thought through enough, or purchased enough curriculum. My school room is looking more like a school room thanks to IKEA and Craigslist and I am compulsively buying school supplies at every dollar store, Wal-mart, and Target store in my area. I have realized that I may have just been born to do this because I am loving every  minute of it....BUT, the planning and preparing is one thing. I hope that moving on to the teaching phase proves to be equally as wonderful. I am not so naive to believe that every day will be homeschooling bliss and happiness. I know that there will be days that I simply don't want to do it. But I am truly trusting that this path that God has put me on will be so immensely rewarding as I watch my children grow spiritually and academically. I can't help but think how amazing it will feel to be involved in their lives on this close and personal journey, and maybe, I will inspire others around me to Take The Plunge too! 

~Christy ~